She was reaching for the handle when the door swung open to reveal a tall man clad in a pair of sweatpants and nothing else. Several candles burned in the room behind him. The light cast dancing shadows on the walls and gilded his thick black hair with silver highlights.

Daisy's heart jumped into her throat, and then plummeted to her toes. "You!"

A slow smile spread over Erik Delacourt's handsome face. "Does this visit mean you've decided to go exploring with me?" he asked, a wicked gleam in his dark eyes.

"Hardly." Vampire. Vampire! The word screamed inside her mind. He was a vampire. Now that she knew, she couldn't believe she hadn't realized it sooner. Lordy, not only was he a vampire, but she had let him kiss her. Not once, but several times. She had even considered going to bed with him. The memory should have disgusted her, but it didn't. Why didn't it? She would have to examine her feelings about that later. Right now, she had to get out of there before he...no! She wouldn't think about that. And yet she couldn't stop herself from imagining him bending over her neck, his fangs at her throat as he drained her dry. Or worse, made her what he was.

"So, you didn't come to go exploring the dark side with me." Erik folded his arms across his chest. "Why are you here?" He glanced at the syringe clutched in her hand. "Don't tell me, you're working for the Red Cross. I didn't know they were going door to door collecting blood these days."

She forced a smile. "Very funny." She took a step backward, wondering what the odds were that she could outrun him.

She jumped when the door at the top of the stairs slammed shut. She was well and truly caught, she thought. Like a rabbit in a trap.

He grinned at her, and his eyes glowed as red as the needle on her compass. "Welcome to my parlor, said the spider to the fly."

"What do you think you're doing?" she exclaimed.

"Isn't it obvious? You were about to leave. And I want you to stay."

"Why?" She slid her hand into her pocket, her fingers curling around the wooden stake inside. Yet even as she contemplated driving it into his heart, she knew she couldn't do it. It was one thing to destroy a vampire you had never met; quite another when you had kissed him.

"Come now, my little flower," he chided softly. "You must know why."

She took another step backward and tripped on the bottom step.

His hand shot out, catching her before she fell. "Careful."

Daisy shook off his hand, and even as she did so, she knew it was only because he let her. He had a grip like iron. "Let me go! You have no right to keep me here."

"And you have no right to take our blood."

"I can do whatever I like," she retorted. "It's you and your kind who have no rights."

He regarded her curiously for a moment. "You're the one they call the Blood Thief, aren't you?"

"Of course not!" Even as she denied it, fear coiled like a snake in the pit of her stomach as her newfound courage deserted her. It was one thing to face a vampire when he was lying helpless in his coffin, quite another when he was wide-awake and towering over you.

He gestured at the syringe in her hand. "Then why are you here, with that?"

Thinking quickly, she said, "I indulge, from time to time."

"Is that so?"

"What if it is?" she asked with a nonchalant shrug. "It's perfectly legal."

"Is that how you get your kicks? Stealing our blood?"

"I don't have to steal it. You can buy it online."

"Let me get this straight. You can buy it online, but you decided to cut out the middle man by breaking into my house. What were you going to do? Siphon some of my blood and drink it on the premises?"

"Yes. No. I mean..."

"Why drink from a bottle when you can enjoy it fresh and warm from the source? I'm told you get a better high that way."

At the thought, Daisy felt all the color drain from her face. She couldn't think of anything more repulsive than drinking vampire blood. She had never understood how her clients could drink it, or why they wanted to.

Lifting his left arm to his mouth, he bit into his wrist, then offered it to her. "Please, help yourself."

She stared at the dark red blood welling from the shallow wound and thought she might be sick to her stomach. She had taken some first aid classes, worked at a hospital as an aide one summer. What better way to learn about drawing blood? She had seen injured people and bloody wounds. None of that had made her stomach churn like this.

She looked up at the vampire, her heart pounding. He knew, she thought. Knew she was lying.

He offered her his arm again. "Go on, help yourself."

"Will you let me go if I do?"

"Sure."

She didn't believe him, but what other choice did she have? With hands that trembled, she took hold of his arm and ran her tongue over the bloody wound. Lifting her head, she stared up at him in confusion. She had expected to find it repulsive. Instead, she had the craziest impulse to taste him again.

He smiled at her, as if he knew exactly what she was thinking. Without taking his gaze from hers, he licked the wound.

It was too much. Her legs suddenly refused to hold her, and with a faint cry, she pitched forward as everything went black.

Chapter 10

Erik caught the girl before she hit the ground. Plucking the syringe from her hand, he tossed it into a wastebasket, then cradled her in his arms. She was feather-light as he carried her up the stairs and down the hall to one of the unused bedrooms.

He had bought the house back in 2007. Real estate in LA had taken a sharp nosedive back then. Unable to pay their mortgages, people had walked away from their homes. He had bought this place for three hundred thousand dollars, a third of what it would have sold for a year earlier. He figured the former owners must have moved out in the middle of the night, since they hadn't taken anything with them except their clothing. They'd left their furniture, the appliances in the kitchen, the sheets on the beds. It was a well-built place, with three good-sized bedrooms upstairs, and one guest bedroom on the first floor. He had no use for the large, family kitchen, or for any of the other rooms, save for the master bedroom where he kept his clothes, and the adjoining bathroom. The rest of the rooms he kept closed.

He had chosen this particular house for three reasons: it sat on a quiet street well separated from its neighbors, there were no houses behind it, and it had a large downstairs family room, which now served as his lair. He had made the necessary adjustments to ensure his security, which had included installing a three-inch-thick iron door to keep the world at bay while he rested.

Save for the alterations to the family room, he had done little to the house other than change the paint in the living room from a hideous yellow to a more restful shade of pale sage green, and to repaint the master bedroom and bathroom, both of which had been a virulent shade of pink, but were now an inoffensive off-white.

He tucked the girl into bed, then stood at the foot, gazing down at her. She looked as delicate as the flower whose name she bore. Hard to believe anyone so young and lovely could be the Blood Thief. He grunted softly. How the hell had she found him? And, more importantly, had she been looking for vampires in general, or for him in particular? And if she had been looking for him, why?

Sitting on the edge of the bed, he slid his arm beneath her shoulders, brushed her hair from the side of her neck. Closing his eyes, he breathed in her scent. She smelled of strawberry shampoo, soap, and woman. And blood, of course. He could smell it, hear it moving through her veins.

Erik scrubbed one hand across his jaw. She had come seeking his blood, he thought as he bent over her neck. What was the old saying? Turnabout was fair play. As his fangs pierced the tender skin of her throat, he wondered if she would agree.

Daisy woke slowly. Feeling groggy, she pressed her hands to her temples. Why did she feel so strange? Had she gotten drunk last night?

Opening her eyes to mere slits, she sat up. Groaned. And then bolted off the bed. Where was she? Not her own bedroom, that was for certain. This room was painted a bright lilac. A purple carpet covered the floor. Purple curtains hung at the windows; a matching spread covered the twin bed. Hand-drawn pictures of Care Bears were painted on the walls.

Feeling light-headed, she hurried out of the room. She remembered where she was now. The vampire's house. She had fainted. She shook her head, disgusted with herself. She had staked a vampire and yet she had fainted dead away when Erik licked his own blood. Where was the sense in that? And where was he? And what had he been doing awake in the middle of the afternoon?

She slowed her steps, suddenly cautious. What time was it? Was he awake? There was no sign of him as she made her way to the front door. Perhaps he had returned to his lair. Grateful for her good luck, she curled her hand around the knob and gave it a twist. And nothing happened. The knob didn't turn. The door didn't open. She tugged on the handle. It didn't budge.

Aware of time passing, she turned on her heel and went looking for another way out. She found a back door in the kitchen but it, too, refused to open. She stared at it in confusion. It wasn't locked. Why couldn't she open the darn thing?

A window, then. She dragged a chair over to the sink, climbed up on the counter, and tried to open the window. Only it refused to cooperate.

Fear clogged her throat. Was she dreaming?

Feeling like Alice lost in Wonderland, she climbed off the counter, picked up the chair, and threw it at the window. The chair bounced off the glass, almost hitting her in the face. But it didn't break the window.

She had to be dreaming.

She was fighting a burgeoning rush of hysteria when she realized she was no longer alone. He was there, behind her. She could feel his presence. Hands clenched at her sides, she slowly turned to face him. "You said you'd let me go if I...I drank your blood."

"All in good time. How do you feel?"

She blinked at him a moment, and then her eyes narrowed with accusation. "You drank my blood, didn't you? Took it while I was unconscious? That's why I feel so funny." Although funny didn't really describe it. She felt...how did she feel? She shook her head. She had never felt this way before, and she didn't like it. Was this how vampires felt after she siphoned their blood?